Free custom ringtones and text tones for iOS 5

October 19, 2011

Transcript

Brian Tong here with CNET.com and one of the new features in iOS 5 allows you to use your custom ring tones as custom text tones because there's plenty of you that have reached for your phone when it was someone else who received a text message.
Loser.
So we're gonna show you how to do it and if you've seen our ring tones video, the process is almost exactly the same but let's refresh your memory.
So first off, let's start in iTunes and find a song like this one that I wanna turn into a ring tone or text tone.
Right-click on the song and select Get Info.
A window will appear with track information and you wanna select the Options tab and look for the start time and stop time settings.
Click on the boxes next to those settings for now.
Now I know where I want my custom tone to start, so I'm entering a start time and a stop time.
There's 40 seconds max duration for iTunes custom tones and if you wanna use sound effects or sound bites from your favorite movie, just make sure you have an audio file
that's playable in iTunes.
Once you've set the time, press OK then go to Advanced on the main menu bar and select Create AAC Version.
iTunes will create the shorter version of your song below the original file.
You'll see the duration time and you wanna drag and drop that version onto your desktop to make a copy.
Now there's a little housekeeping we need to take care of first.
If the option to create AAC version is not available in iTunes, go to your preferences and in the General tab, find the section that says "When You Enter a CD,"
click on the Import settings and then select Import Using AAC Encoder.
The option should now appear in the menu bar.
You also wanna go back to the original audio file in iTunes and then check off the Start and Stop Time so that it plays normally from now on.
Okay, back to our custom audio file on the desktop.
We're going to change the extension name on the file from M4A to M4R.
You'll be asked to confirm the changes and will use M4R.
Now for Windows users, you'll need to go to your Control Panel then choose
Appearance and Personalization, select the Folder Options and in the View tab, make sure you've unchecked the box to hide extensions for known file types.
That will allow you to see and change the file type.
Okay, we're almost there, but before you bring your ring tone back into iTunes, you have to delete the custom version that we initially created and if you don't do this, iTunes will not accept the ring tone.
So, this is an important, crucial step.
Once you've done that, drag and drop the renamed M4R file into the Source column of iTunes
and the word Library should highlight.
It will copy the file into iTunes.
Check out the ring tone section and voila, you have a new ring tone.
Plug in your phone into your computer.
Make sure you set it up to sync the ring tones in the appropriate section and your custom tones will be synced to your phone.
Now the final step is to take your iOS device, go into your settings, then Sounds.
Now we already know about ring tones, so this time let's go to your text tones and you'll be able to choose your default sound of choice from the ones you've created and if you want even more customization,
you can go into your contacts and set specific ring tones and text tones for your friends.
I'm Brian Tong with your How To for Custom Ring Tones and Text Tones for iOS 5. There's no reason for you to pay money when you can do it this way.
Hey, Shevaki just texted me.
Use it wisely.